קסם וחסר מזה

Enchantment and lack thereof

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Location: Columbus, Ohio, United States

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Special Guest Contributor!

Today's entry was written by Moose. His interdisciplinary Arts paper came across my desk and I knew I just had to include it. Plus, I was too lazy to write something myself. Before posting his assignment, I met with Moose for a short interview.

Me: Why tow trucks
Moose: I was drinking a beer and I had an epiphany. I have to write another paper in 2 weeks about what is the meaning of the tow truck it's going to be awesome!
Me: Can I post this in my blog?
Moose: Yes! I've worked so hard on it today, I've been drinking all afternoon and wrote it in 15 mins. Thank you natural light! Put something like.. I'm single and desperate and on the verge of curing cancer and having more beer money than anyone in Athens.
Me: Are you planning on passing this assignment?
Moose: Yea why? I'll get an A. I wrote about the lesbian poster last time and why parking meters are art. She took my paper out of everyone's and talked about it for an hour.

Moose's entry is completely unedited, because I was too lazy to do that too. I hope you enjoy it.

Seductively Fashionable
Throughout our wonderful world there are thousands of different ways to commute from one area to another. Trains, planes, trikes and bikes are just a few of these wondrous ways to travel. In general, only high end cars such as Ferraris and Porsches are commonly considered as art. However, there is one beautiful transportation device that is often never thought of as “art”. It’s the one vehicle that towers over all others because it has the godly ability to devour other vehicles. This glorious piece of art would be the tow truck.
Throughout the beautiful small town of Athens, Ohio one will have the opportunity to witness true artwork. The tow truck is often viewed from any street corner and is a relic to the history of the town. Tow trucks come in a wide variety of colors, except in the Athens area where they are usually a beautiful and vibrant red—just like a blooming rose. This rose of a vehicle has a box-like shape with silver wheels that lend an added sparkle to its beauty. Logos and other designs are incorporated into the vibrant color to promote a happy and friendly feeling from the truck. On the roof of the truck lies another mystical feature. Flashing lights with a brisk tangerine color enlighten the surrounding areas with a pulsing and throbbing sense of energy. Tow trucks produce different sounds from normal vehicles as well as scents. There is nothing sweet about the scent of the trucks fumes, but it does give a feel of power and lust. In sunlight, a soft and gentle shadow is cast on the ground that reveals a silhouette. This silhouette brings a sense of unity between the truck and the environment. It’s as if it was meant to be there, just like a tree in the forest.
Perhaps the most important part of the tow truck is the driver, which is in fact the focal point. Often the driver resembles a plumber, but in reality he is a completely different person. Drivers of the infamous tow truck radiate a sense of hard work and devotion to the art of towing. The fame of being a tow truck driver requires attire that is not that of a school teacher, business major or doctor, but that of a tow truck driver. Today’s drivers have created their own special line of designer apparel that is appealing even to the everyday supermodel. With dark, slick, grease stained clothes and the professional button down polyester shirt, the tow truck driver is a knight of true art and creativity.
In writing this paper great knowledge was gained in the business of art. It was not necessarily what was learned from the art, but opening the mind to realize all the different objects of life that can be considered art. The tow truck for example has never been considered as art by anyone until the creation of paper. If people were more open-minded then other great masterpieces like the tow truck would be realized and credit would be given to their creators for such a great services to society. In time, even this paper will be considered a work of art.


Quote of the day:
"Sometimes it doesn't matter what the color of a person's skin is". - Frank Keating (R) Former Governor of Oklahoma 4/17/2005 on FOX News

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

FOX Facts

I watch FOX News so much it makes me sick. I am infuriated and physically sick from watching it, but I can't seem to pull my eyes away. It is truly the cigarette of television. I've done some research about FOX that I will share with you; this way you can get the jist of it without exposing yourself to the carcinogenic radiation.
  • The O'Reilly Factor is always taped and edited. It is one of very few news programs of it's kind that does not broadcast live.

  • The CEO, Chairman, and President of FOX News is Roger Ailes, an Ohio University graduate. How shameful.

  • After he began his career in broadcasting, Ailes started Ailes Communications, Inc and was successful as a political strategist for Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr. and in producing campaign TV commercials for Republican political candidates.

  • FOX News currently leads the cable news market, earning better ratings than its chief competitors CNN and MSNBC combined.

  • The BBC reported that FOX News saw its profits double during the Iraq conflict, due in part to what the report called "patriotic" coverage of the war. By some reports, at the height of the conflict, they enjoyed as much as a 300% increase in viewership, averaging 3.3 million viewers daily .

  • John Prescott Ellis, a full cousin of George W. Bush, was one of four consultants assigned by the Voter News Service to FOX News on the night of the 2000 Presidential election; thus he was part of the team that recommended FOX News be the first to retract its call of Florida for Gore and the first to call Florida for Bush, which FOX News did at 2:16 a.m. Ellis admitted to informing Jeb and George Bush several times by telephone how projections were going on election night

  • A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes reported that viewers of the Fox Network local affiliates or Fox News were more likely than viewers of other news networks to hold three misperceptions:
      * 67% of FOX viewers believed that the "US has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization" (Compared with 56% for CBS, 49% for NBC, 48% for CNN, 45% for ABC, 16% for both NPR and PBS).
      * 33% of FOX viewers believed that the "US has found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction since the war ended". (Compared with 23% for CBS, 20% for both CNN and NBC, 19% for ABC and 11% for both NPR and PBS)
      * 35% of FOX viewers believed that "the majority of people in the world favor the US having gone to war" with Iraq. (Compared with 28% for CBS, 27% for ABC, 24% for CNN, 20% for NBC, 5% for both NPR and PBS)

  • A news article in October 2004 by Carl Cameron, chief political correspondent of FOX News, contained three fabricated quotes attributed to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The quotes included: "Women should like me! I do manicures," "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" and "I'm metrosexual [Bush's] a cowboy." FOX News retracted the story and apologized, citing a "jest" that became published through "fatigue and bad judgment, not malice".

  • A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in 2005 found that, in covering the Iraq War in 2004, 73% of FOX News stories included editorial opinions, compared to 29% on MSNBC and 2% on CNN. The same report found FOX less likely than CNN to present multiple points of view.

Now you know, friends, don't fall for it. This election was won because of Karl Rove's 3-pillar stragedy. The three pillars were Misinformation, Manipulation, and Money; without any one, the Republicans would have surely failed.